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RusLab

The Russia Observatory (RUSLAB) is a dedicated research hub for the study of Russia, its domestic politics, historical trajectories, and international role, combining academic rigour with policy-relevant analysis and public-facing outputs. The research is situated within the broader debate on post-liberal contestation and the transformation of the international order.

RuLAB’s work aims to integrate close analysis of domestic governance, political economy, and social dynamics with a strong historical perspective rooted in Soviet and imperial legacies. It also examines how past institutional configurations, political cultures, and identity narratives continue to shape contemporary Russian politics and society.

Thematically, the Observatory covers four main interconnected areas:

Domestic politics and society — governance structures, center–periphery relations, regional identities, social stratification, ideological, religious and cultural evolutions, and the interaction between elites and the Russian society.
Russia–Europe relations — historical entanglements, energy interdependence, security architecture, and the reconfiguration of ties under war and sanctions.
The Eurasian space — relations with neighboring states, regional integration, and alignments involving China, Turkey, India, and other major Global South actors.
Global footprint — Russia’s political, economic, and security presence in Africa, the Middle East, and Russia’s role in reshaping the broader international order.

Head of Unit

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Manfredi Valeriani

Manfredi Valeriani earned his PhD at Hamburg University and Luiss University with a thesis on “Funding Instruments to Italian NGOs” is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Luiss where he also teaches Political Risk Analysis and International Politics and Businesses. He has been Adjunct Professor at the University “L’Orientale” in Naples and at the American University of Rome. His research currently focuses on Structured Analytic Techniques, Scenario Analysis, and Italian Foreign Policy.
Marc Reverdin

Marc Reverdin is an international expert in public affairs and strategic diplomacy. He is the founder and CEO of Reverdin Consulting, a high-level advisory firm that helps companies and institutions navigate major geopolitical, economic, and environmental challenges. A former French diplomat, he served in Paris, Rome, and the services of the French Prime Minister before co-founding the Paris Peace Forum, an initiative of the French President launched in 2018. He now leads or advises several international initiatives, particularly in the agrifood, African, and Mediterranean sectors. Marc is also a frequent speaker, high-level moderator, and lecturer in international affairs.
Marco Massoni

Marco Massoni (PhD, Rome 1972) is an independent political analyst and international relations expert, specialist in Africa, Latin America, and Extra-Western philosophies. Since 2022, he has been teaching African Studies at LUISS University of Rome. As of 2025, he directs the Africa and Latin America Research Unit at LUISS’s Centre for International and Strategic Studies (CISS). Previously, he served as Diplomatic Senior Advisor for the Italian G8 Presidency and worked with the EU, OSCE, UN (FAO, UNHCR), NGOs, and think tanks. From 2011 to 2017, he was Director of African Research at IRAD at the Italian Centre for Defence Higher Studies (CASD), where he still lectures. He was Editorial Director of the quarterly Politica Africana. He has taught Development Studies at The American University of Rome (AUR) and International Law and Peace Processes at Roma Tre University. He is a consultant of the European Union External Action Service (EEAS) and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), extensive experience in the field of democratisation processes, electoral observation & electoral assistance, diplomacy & negotiation, cyber-diplomacy, human rights & humanitarian law, mediation, peacebuilding & conflict resolution, post-war reconstruction and strategic studies.
Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré

Maria Giulia Amadio Vicerè is Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) in Political Science at the Department of Political Science of Luiss University and a Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (EUI). Before that, she has been a Marie Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (EUI), an Adjunct Professor and post-doctoral fellow at Luiss University, and an Assistant Professor at Leiden University. She held various visiting positions in international renowned institutions, among which the German Institute for International Affairs, the Centre for European Studies at Harvard University, the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, and the Policy Institute at King’s College. Over time, she has also been the recipient of merit-based scholarships and grants from the European Commission; the Zegna Group; the Lazio Region; and the The Australian Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethic. Beyond academia, she has been a Research Associate at the Istituto Affari Internazionali, a Research Fellow at the Policy Planning Unit of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, a Blue Book Trainee at the Service for Foreign Policy Instrument of the European Commission and a research intern at the European Policy Centre. Moreover, she has briefed and provided training to public and private institutions, among which the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Italian Ministry of Defence, Oxford Analytica, the European Institute for the Mediterranean, the Swedish Institute for European Studies, the Foundation for European Progressive Studies, Villa Vigoni, and il Sole 24 Ore Business School.
Marlène Agnès Laruelle

Marlene Laruelle is a Full Professor of Political Science at Luiss Guido Carli University and previously served as Research Professor at The George Washington University’s Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES) from 2011 to 2025, where she held leadership roles as Associate Director and Director. She earned her Ph.D. in History from INALCO in Paris and a habilitation in Political Science from Sciences Po Paris. Laruelle leads the Illiberalism Studies Program, a transatlantic platform dedicated to research on illiberalism and postliberalism, and is a non-residential Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center. Throughout her career, she has held fellowships and visiting appointments at notable institutions such as the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna, IFRI, the Carnegie Council, the Woodrow Wilson Center, and SAIS–Johns Hopkins University. She has authored or edited over twenty books with top academic presses, including recent monographs like Ideology and Meaning-Making under Putin Regime (2025) and Russia’s Arctic: A Changing Geopolitical and Environmental Context (2026), alongside numerous articles in leading scholarly and policy publications.

Trained as a historian of ideas, Laruelle’s early work focused on post-Soviet Central Asia and Russia, examining nation-building processes, regional geopolitics, labor migration, and the intellectual underpinnings of Putin’s regime. Her research later expanded to the Russian Arctic, exploring how environmental change, infrastructure development, and territorial imaginaries influence political worldviews. More recently, she has turned to conceptual history and global comparative studies, analyzing the challenges facing liberalism and the emerging normative alternatives to the liberal international order. Her scholarship bridges academic rigor with policy relevance, offering insights into the evolving political and intellectual dynamics of Russia and the broader international system.
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Researcher

Abdelkarim Skouri

Abdelkarim Skouri is the Research Unit Coordinator at CISS and Teaching Assistant for the African Politics and Institutions course at LUISS University. He is also a Research Associate at the Mediterranean Platform – LUISS School of Government, focusing on governance, regional integration, and Mediterranean-Africa relations, particularly in the Global South. He holds a Master’s in International Relations from LUISS, and previously studied Political Science at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (Rabat) and Sciences Po (Paris). His academic interests include security, diplomacy, and political economy in the MENA region. He has interned at institutions such as the International Chamber of Commerce, IDRN, and the International Affairs Institute, and is the founder of the LUISS Students Diplomatic Association (LUSDA).
Ada Pia Visciotti

Ada Pia Visciotti is a consultant to the European Commission, where she works on the integration of socio-economic policy frameworks into EU development cooperation. Her focus includes social protection, distributional impact assessments, and inequality-sensitive approaches across grants and blended finance. She holds a Double Master’s in Policies and Governance in Europe from LUISS Guido Carli and King’s College London, where she received the Best Dissertation Award for her research on structural power in Africa–EU relations combining topic modeling of institutional and corporate discourse and Global Production Network analysis for value chains reconstruction. Her research interests include socio-economic development policy, structural power and trade, inequality reduction, global value chains, and the political economy of food systems.
Adriana Lori

Adriana Lori is a diplomat currently serving at the Permanent Mission of Italy to the OSCE. Her previous roles include Consul at the Italian Consulate General in Chongqing, China, and head of the Partnerships section within the NATO Office at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Her research centers on the impact of technology and artificial intelligence on international security and foreign policy.

Fluent in English, Chinese, and Spanish, with working proficiency in French and basic Russian, she holds a Double Master’s Degree in International Relations from LUISS Guido Carli and China Foreign Affairs University. She also completed postgraduate courses at Harvard Kennedy School, focusing on security and emerging technologies.

In her free time, she enjoys kickboxing, running, and immersing herself in French and Russian literature.
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Alessandro Ranieri

Alessandro Ranieri, Law Degree and PhD in International and European Union Law at the Aldo Moro University of Bari, has lectured in the law of the sea within the Degree Programme in Sciences and Management of Maritime Activities offered by the same University in cooperation with the Italian Navy. He has also taught European Union Law at the Training School of the Italian Financial Police (Guardia di Finanza).

Dr Ranieri has also contributed to various research projects, particularly under the coordination of the Taranto Port Authority and CoNISMa (Consorzio nazionale interuniversitario per le scienze del mare). Author of a monograph on arms transfers at sea, as well as of several scientific publications in the field of the Law of the Sea. His PhD thesis focused on maritime piracy.
Alfonso Giordano

Alfonso Giordano is an associate professor of Economic and Political Geography at Niccolò Cusano University of Rome and an adjunct professor at LUISS University, where he teaches “Exogeography, Astropolitics, and Space Economy”. His research focuses on population geography, political demography, and human-environment interactions, with a particular emphasis on border studies. Recently, he has investigated the geographical, political and economic dimensions of space exploration, analysing its implications for governance, resource allocation, and territoriality beyond Earth.
Amedeo Antonucci

Amedeo Antonucci is a retired Brigadier General of the Italian Financial Police (Guardia di Finanza). He holds degrees in Law and Economic and Financial Security Sciences.

He is the co-author and co-editor of several legal and operational publications. He has also lectured and delivered presentations in university courses and master’s programmes on maritime law enforcement, international law of the sea, immigration law, maritime security, and related fields.

From 2020 to 2025, he commanded the Guardia di Finanza Nautical School, the training institution responsible for the education and specialist training of Guardia di Finanza personnel operating at sea.

Throughout his career, he held command positions within operational units of the Guardia di Finanza, where he planned and directed numerous air-naval law enforcement operations against illicit maritime trafficking at both national and transnational levels. Some of these operations, following the related criminal proceedings, contributed to the development of established case law and became important reference points in the sector. From 2013 to 2017, he also served as Local Coordinator for Frontex operations.

His expertise focuses on the legal and operational management of air-naval operations targeting illicit maritime trafficking in territorial waters and on the high seas, as well as on maritime investigations. He currently works as a legal consultant.
Andrea Capati

Andrea Capati is a post-doctoral researcher and adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at Luiss Guido Carli University, and a visiting researcher at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. His research examines the institutions and policies of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), with a particular focus on the integration of EU financial assistance. His work has appeared in Journal of European Integration, Comparative European Politics, European Political Science, Politics and Governance, Italian Political Science Review, and Contemporary Italian Politics, among others. His forthcoming monograph, All for One? The Politics of Financial Rescue in the European Union, is under contract with Palgrave Macmillan.
Andrea Gilli

Andrea Gilli is a Senior Researcher at the NATO Defense College, Rome. He received his PhD in Social and Political Science from the European University Institute in 2014. His research interests focus on issues related to technological change and military innovation. His Twitter account is @aa_gilli.
Antonino Alì

Antonino Alì is an associate professor of International Law at the University of Trento. Previously, he conducted research at the Universities of Geneva and Milan. He teaches the course “National Security from the Perspective of International and European Union Law” and researches the interaction between state economic security and international and European law. Since 2024, he has been a member, as an expert, of the Strategic Evaluation and Analysis Unit on the Exercise of Special Powers at the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers.